


Grounded Flight

by skymageariel



Series: 31 days of The Dragon Prince [23]
Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Canon Universe, F/M, Filler, Fluff, Fun, Gen, Wings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-26
Updated: 2020-10-26
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:01:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27207796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skymageariel/pseuds/skymageariel
Summary: After learning the mage wing spell, Callum was eager to show his friends back home his new power. Theres just one issue... he does’t know how to get rid of them.
Relationships: Callum/Rayla (The Dragon Prince)
Series: 31 days of The Dragon Prince [23]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1946767
Comments: 6
Kudos: 64





	Grounded Flight

“ _ Manus Pluma Volantis! _ ” Callum called, voice echoing against the stone walls of his and Rayla’s bedroom. He grinned widely, Soren and Ezran staring in awe as feathers replaced skin, crawling up his arms and erupting into full-fledged wings. Their jaws dropped. “Pretty cool, right?”

“That’s crazy!” Ezran laughed, running up, pulling a feather from what used to be his brother’s arm. “Does it hurt when I do this?”

“Yes. Please don’t.”

“Wait, so you can fly with those?” Soren asked, scratching an imaginary beard in thought. “And you don’t fall?”

“Well, I haven’t fallen yet-“

“Could you fly right now?” Ezran bounced on his feet. “Show me, show me, show me!”

“Uh, I can’t while we’re inside-“

“Exactly what is the wingspan here?” Soren asked, pulling one wing out as far as it could go. “Oh, wow, easily like, twelve feet, right?”

“Please stop-“

“How fast can you go? Could you go faster than Phoe-phoe?” Ezran ducked under the feathers like a curtain.

“Uh-“

“How long did it take you to learn this?”

“Does it hurt when the feathers poke your skin?”

“How do you hold anything when you don’t have hands?”

“How high can you go?”

“Yeah, how high can you go?”

“Okay, both of you calm down or else I’m putting them away!” Callum pulled his arms- well, wings closer to his chest, away from Soren and Ezran who would not stop poking and prodding. “I’m still a person, you can’t just pluck my feathers-“

“Can they change colors?”

“Ooh, can you fly faster than you can walk?”

“Oh come on, Soren, of course he can fly faster. Can you?”

“Okay! That’s it.” Callum pulled the wings away and moved to the other side of the room. “Wings are going away!”

“Woah, I bet it's really cool to see everything go away!”

“Yeah! Do they go back to arms or- do you just put on sleeves or something?”

Callum hesitated. “I actually don’t know,” he said, confused. “When I landed with Rayla, they just kinda went away.”

“How?” 

“I don’t know, Soren, they just did,” He shrugged, holding the wings out in front of him. “Uhhh, maybe if I just think hard enough.”

“Do you say a special spell?”

“I don’t  _ know,  _ Ezran, I’ve never had to do this before,” Callum said, starting to panic. “I actually don’t know how to get rid of these!”

“Maybe they go away automatically when you land,” Soren suggested, making his way closer. “If we can just get you somewhere high enough-“

“Soren, no, I know what you’re thinking,” Callum backed away, stumbling over his own two feet, “I’m not gonna fly inside, that would be completely unsafe!” His balance was completely thrown off by the extra weight on either side.

“Okay, well we can go outside!” Ezran suggested.

“Yep! Great idea!” Callum nodded as Soren came closer, grinning mischievously, stepping closer and closer. “Uh, I don’t know why you’re getting so close to me,” he exclaimed, stepping onto his bed to try and get away.

“Oh, I’ve got you cornered now,” Soren laughed. 

“What? What do you mean?” Callum asked, voice cracking. Soren nodded to the window behind him- which was wide open, sending a chilling breeze throughout the entire room. “Soren no!” He kept stepping back as if it would help, though Soren only came closer. 

“Soren, yes!” He pushed Callum’s shoulders, sending him tumbling down and out the window, yelling the whole way down. “Just use your wings!” Soren laughed, sticking his head out the window to watch the kid fall. 

“Soren! What did you do!” Ezran rushed to the window. “You just killed my brother!” 

“No I didn’t, look!” Soren pointed to Callum, who was gliding through the air, headed towards the courtyard. “It was fun to think about, though,” he gwaffed to himself. 

“C’mon, we have to go see if he’s okay!” Ezran tore away from the window, rushing out the door and down the hall, Soren laughing and chasing after. 

They met in the courtyard, Ezran and Soren out of breath, laughing as they watched Callum land. As soon as his feet hit the ground, Soren came up and tackled him with an Amaya-style hug, lifting him into the air. 

“That was so cool!” he laughed, shaking the kid. 

“Uh-huh, that’s very nice of you, can you put me down now?” Callum strained against Soren’s grip. He let go, sending Callum crashing to the ground with a groan, landing flat on his back, wings and all.

“Next time don’t push me out a window?” he said, hugging his stomach, searching for breath.

“I can’t believe the high mage of Katois can fly!” Ezran cheered, offering a hand to help him up. When Callum went to take it, he came to a startling realization. He didn’t have a hand. He had wings.

“Yeah, this is an issue,” he said, sitting up. “I need my hands back.”

“Well, didn’t that one skywing dude teach you how to do the spell?” Soren picked him up by the waist like a doll. Callum rolled his eyes, but accepted it. This was normal.

“He  _ showed  _ me the spell once, and I just remembered it.” The wings moved in every direction as he spoke, Soren and Ezran dodging the occasional swipe that came their way. Callum talked with his hands- and the muscle memory must have transferred. “I never actually  _ saw  _ how to complete the spell, only how to cast it.”

“I thought you learned your lesson with the fulminis spell- you shouldn’t start a spell if you don’t know how to end it,” Ezran scolded. “Remember? When you shocked the whole river?”

Callum sighed. “Yes, I remember, and I’d prefer to leave the past behind us.” He stepped towards the castle with determination. The wings were so long, they dragged on the ground behind him, which was enough temptation for Soren to step on the feathers that dragged behind, just to be difficult. “Ow!”

“Sorry,” Soren said, bending down to pick up the feather he’d pulled out. “You dropped this,” he held it out in front of him. Callum turned around with some difficulty, glaring at the feather. 

“You can keep it.”

“Ew, I don’t want your hair. That’s gross.” 

“Then don’t keep it,” he turned back, walking towards the front steps. “Let’s just get inside so we can figure out how to get rid of these- OW! Soren, stop stepping on the wings!”

“Oh, sorry,” Ezran giggled. He and Soren shared a high-five. 

“We need to focus,” Callum said. “I think we should find Rayla- I think she’d be ablt to figure out how to fix this.”

“What makes you say that?” Soren came up next to him as they walked. “She’s a moonshadow elf. Doesn't that make her an expert in the moon?”

“Rayla’s really smart, I’m sure she’ll have  _ some _ idea.”

—

“So, let me get this straight.” Rayla sat at a study table in the library, facing the three boys, a very disheveled Callum in the middle, wings draped beside him. “You cast the spell, and now you don’t know how to finish it?”

“Yes,” he grumbled. Rayla snorted.

“Yeah, I have no idea how to help. It’s a good look for you, though,” she replied, stifling a laugh.

“C’mon, Rayla, this isn’t funny!” Callum protested, bringing the wings up as if they were arms. He misjudged their length and hit both Soren and Ezran in the face, sending Rayla into a laughing fit.

“Yes it is,” she chuckled, wiping away tears. “And all too familiar, might I remind you. Don’t you remember with fulminis-“

“We already talked about this!” Callum was beginning to get frustrated. “Look, I just want my hands back.”

“Well, how did you get them back last time?”

“I didn’t! They just came back!” He stood, pushing the chair he was sitting in out to the floor. “I’m going to leaf through all our books on magic and see if I can find anything. Feel free to help.”

“This is not a good color on him,” Ezran noted as Callum stormed off. 

“What, the brown?” Soren asked. “I think the brown feathers match his hair nicely-“

“No, I meant his attitude.”

“Oh.”

“We better help him,” Rayla said, hiding a smile as she stood. “It gets way less entertaining if he’s like this for too long.” A rumble sounded from one of the rows of books. Though Callum was hidden by the shelf, a pile of books and a cloud of feathers spilled into the center walkway. “Yeah, he needs help.”

The three walked to the aisle he was in, watching silently as he tried to pull a book off the shelves. Long story short, it wasn’t working. He had no grip- every time he managed to grab hold of a book, it just slipped through, landing on the ground, pulling others down with it. He looked up at the rest of them, shoulders slumped, eyes shining like a lost puppy’s.

“Help?”

“Just- just don’t touch anything,” Rayla said, picking up the books that had fallen. “Try not to knock anything over. We’ll figure it out, just don’t break anything.”

“Sounds easy enough.”

“You managed to make a mess in a library,” Soren said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if the whole building ended up on fire.”

“You know what, Soren?” Ezran said, looking up at him. “You follow Callum, around, make sure he doesn't break anything.”

“But-“

“That’s an order.”

“Fine,” Soren groaned, walking over to Callum. He placed a hand on his shoulder, leading him away from the library. “Let's say you and me go grab some lunch,” he grumbled.

“Okay, now that he’s out of the way,” Rayla stacked books back on the shelves, speaking to Ezran. “Anything with the sky rune on the side- grab it and bring it to the center table.”

“You got it,” he said with a smile, already examining the books he could see. 

A few minutes passed, and Ezran and Rayla had built up quite a stash of books on their table. Rayla sat down and began skimming through them, while Ezran continued to bring new books to look through. Soon enough, they’d cleared out every sky book in the magic section, and both of them were reading as quickly as they could. Meanwhile, as they tried (keyword;  _ tried _ ) to make their way to the palace kitchen, Callum and Soren encountered some difficulties. 

“I’m just a little scared!” Callum confessed, waving the wings around like they were his hands. “What if I can’t get my hands back! How am I going to cast other spells! How am I going to draw?”

Soren dodged a wall of feathers. “Maybe chill for a second- one wrong move and you’ll knock out one of these armor stands.”

“I just can’t imagine how I’m going to go through life with wings instead of hands- you saw what happened in there!” He gestured towards the library, wings narrowly missing a tapestry hanging on the wall. “I can’t even pick up a book! How am I gonna do anything!”

“I bet there’s gonna be a simple solution to this,” Soren assured him. “Have you tried saying the spell again?”

“Oh! That’s a good idea!” Callum stopped in his tracks, holding the wings out in front of him. “ _ Manus Pluma Volantis! _ ” he waited, eyes clenched shut with a hopeful smile. “Is it working?”

“What do you think?”

Callum opened one eye. He still had feathers. “I don’t think it’s working.”

“Great observation. Let’s keep moving.” Soren trekked along, but Callum stayed still. He turned and called back, “Let’s goooo. Soren wants a sandwich.”

“You know, I bet there’s a place we could look,” Callum said with a mischievous grin.

“Where.” Soren made sure to remain deadpan. It was best not to give him encouragement when he had a smile like that.

“Claudia was super into magic- I bet if we check her room, she’ll have something!”

“No!” Soren shouted. “That is a very bad idea!”

“What!? No way. Let’s go!” Callum turned and started running down the hall, but quickly tripped and fell face first into the carpet. “Ow.”

“I told you it was a bad idea.” Soren lifted him by his shirt collar like a puppy, putting him back on his feet.

“I’d like to hear you come up with a better one,” Callum teased.

“Let’s just go back to the library- this isn’t working.” Soren trudged back in the direction of the library, though Callum just stood. “If you run away again, I’ll put you on a leash.”

“Well that’s just rude,” Callum tried to cross his arms as he followed, instead waving feathers in every direction. 

—

By the time the two made it back to the library, Rayla and Ezran had progressed through roughly a dozen books each, eyes tired. They didn’t look up as Soren and Callum came back in. Whether or not they were choosing to ignore the two was a mystery. That’s a lie, they were definitely ignoring them.

“Hello?” Soren called, waving a hand in Rayla’s face. She grabbed his wrist and glared at him. “Okay, I’ll never do that again,” he said, trying to pull away. For a scary second, she didn’t let go.

“Any luck?” Callum asked, trying to pull out a chair. Instead, he knocked it over, and tried to play it off by just sitting on the table.

“Nothing yet,” Ezran grumbled. “Rayla, have you found anything?”

“Not really. There’s supposed to be a chapter in here about mage wings, but it looks like someone ripped out the pages.” As she spoke, she ran her finger down the inside of the spine, over ripped paper that stuck out from the middle. “Who would steal pages from a library book? It’s free to borrow any time.”

“You know what?” Callum suggested.

“No.” Soren already knew what he was thinking. 

“Maybe Claudia-“

“Stop it-“

“I think Claudia probably took the pages! Let’s go!” In one swift motion, he stood on the table and jumped off, gliding down the entirety of the library, Soren chasing after him while Rayla and Ezran stared in dismay.

“We should probably follow them,” Ezran said.

“Probably.”

“Shall we?” he closed his book, placing it back on the pile. 

“We shall.” Rayla walked around the table with a sigh, the two of them trudging together towards Claudia’s room.

Though once they arrived, the situation seemed to be beyond help. Compared to Callum and Rayla’s room, Claudia’s was small. The shelves on the walls had once been lined with glass bottles, but they arrived just in time to watch Callum clumsily hit the wood, sending the entire shelf careening to the floor. Rayla rubbed her eyes- she couldn’t believe she’d chosen this one. Of all the humans, she had to have chosen this one. 

“Dude, you need to calm down!” Soren was chasing Callum around the room, his wings constantly bumping into various shelves and stands and tables, knocking over jars and books, turning the once neat room into an absolute disaster. 

“I’m trying! It’s like these things have a mind of their own!”

“Well tell them to stop!”

“Oh, I’m cured! Thanks, Soren!” Callum yelled back, sarcastically. They had yet to notice Rayla and Ezran standing at the threshold. 

“If we leave now, they’ll never know we were here,” Rayla leaned down, whispering to Ezran.

“That’s not very nice,” Ezran scolded her. “Callum!” he called, causing the commotion in the room to come to a standstill. “Have you found anything?”

“Do you think I’ve found anything?!” He shouted back, exasperated as the wings at his side started waving uncontrollably. “It’s like they hate being in here!”

“Well, duh!” Rayla said, walking into the room and pulling Callum out the door. “Claudia’s a dark mage- you’re a primal mage. Your arcanum doesn’t like being surrounded by all that dark magic!”

“Oh, that makes a lot of sense. But I need to find an answer!” He ducked back into the room, trying to pick up what looked like the last intact jar. But as he lifted it to see its contents, the jar slipped from his grasp, shattering on the ground.

“Callum, this isn’t working!” Ezran said, pulling him by the wing to get out of the room. “Why don’t you let us do the searching? We’ll find something, I promise!”

“Yeah, but-“

“Callum!”

“Okay, Ez, sure!” If he had hands, Callum would have put them up in defeat. Instead, he swiped feathers across Rayla’s and Ezran’s faces, making each of them sneeze. “Oh, great, they’re allergic! Just wonderful.”

“Just wait here,” Rayla waid, grabbing his shoulders. “We’ll figure something out!”

“I think I got it!” Soren shouted from in the room. “It’s the missing pages from that book you had, Rayla!”

“Oh, cool, lemme see!” Callum held out his (not) hands, and without thinking, Soren held out the papers and let go. After he and Callum realized what had just happened, they each let out a sigh as the pages floated to the ground. “Yeah, that was my bad,” Callum whispered.

“Do the missing pages help at all?” Rayla asked, helping Soren collect them off the ground.

“Who's to say?” he shrugged. Rayla stared at him.

“You are.”

“Oh, yeah.” He stood with a fistful of papers, shoving them at Rayla. “You read dragon better than I do,” he said. Rayla took the pages, skimming over them, before dropping the entire pile again in utter disbelief.

“Do you remember what happened after we landed at the storm spire?” she asked.

“I remember everything.”

“Do you remember what you did?”

“Yeah, my feet hit the ground and the wings went away. If I had done something different, don’t you think I would have tried it?”

“No, right after that,” Rayla said, waiting for Callum to remember. Soren and Ezran leaned in with anticipation, eyes wide. Callum stood in thought.

“You mean when I said ‘thanks’?”

“Yeah, exactly!” Rayla said, excited. “You said ‘Thank you’ to the sky, like a prayer or something. Callum- all you have to do is thank the wings.”

“That’s it?” he asked. “Sounds a little too easy.”

“Just try it!” the group said in unison. 

“Uh, okay.” Callum cleared his throat. “Thanks?” And just like that, the feathers flaked off, disappearing under his skin. “I’ve got my arms back!” he exclaimed, cracking his knuckles. “Man, I forgot how much I’ve missed you!”

“Now can we get a sandwich?” Soren asked, placing a hand over his stomach. “Soren’s hungry.”

“I could eat,” Ezran agreed. 

“Me too,” Rayla said, walking with the other three towards the kitchen.

“Wait, so we’re just gonna ignore what just happened?” Callum called after them. “We’re moving on, just like that?”

“Yep!” said Rayla, not looking back. “That’s too much of your crazy weirdness for one day. I want lunch.”

**Author's Note:**

> thanks so much for reading! 
> 
> i broke the streak of modern aus but i had this idea and i couldn’t get it out of my head, and i just had to write it lol. not to worry- tomorrow ill be back with another modern au1 this ones in the same universe as Nintendo Switch, from way earlier in the month. theyre not connected by story, but explains a bit behind some of the backstage roles!
> 
> a quick reminder that i’m not really looking for critiques or criticism with these, so please be mindful of that when asking questions in the comments! <3
> 
> thanks again for tuning in- i hope you enjoyed!


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